In an ordinary Moscow apartment, three adorable little boys pose for the
camera while their sister Maria (Masha) breaks into song. “My son wanted a
daughter. And he wanted to name her Maria, in honor of the Virgin,” said Lamara
Kelesheva. “Family, the next generation, that’s what mattered most to him.”

Kelesheva’s son, Mikhail (Misha), received a diagnosis of acute leukemia
in May 2005 while studying at a technical college in Greece. He was 23. Before
beginning his course of chemotherapy, Misha was given the chance to conserve
some of his sperm. This is a usual procedure in such cases, since after chemotherapy,
the chances of becoming a parent naturally are small, but the patient may still
be able to have children through in-vitro fertilization.

Misha was happy to have this opportunity; he always wanted to have
children. Children are an important part of his large extended family. Misha
himself was one of 10 siblings and Lamara has 46 first cousins spread across
Russia, Ukraine, Georgia and Greece.

Misha battled leukemia for three years before succumbing to the disease.
Only the thought that she would be able to carry out her son’s wish to have
children helped hi mother Lamara through her grief. Although Lamara was certain
of what her son would want, she went to see her son’s priest, the father
superior of the Holy Trinity monastery near Salonik, to ask for his blessing. She
was concerned of what the clergyman might think. After all, close friends and
family members, including her husband, were against Lamara’s plan for
“posthumous grandchildren,” and many church members have denounced artificial
reproductive technologies. She spoke for a long time with Father Kirill. “And
Father Kirill gave me his blessing,” said Lamara. “He only said: Whether or not
children will be born is in the hands of God.”

Now Lamara needed to find two women: one to contribute her eggs and
another to act as surrogate mother and carry the child. And besides that, she
needed money. Surrogate maternity is not cheap. A single try can cost tens of
thousands of rubles. Her extended family all chipped in. First Lamara went to a
clinic in Georgia. Five attempts there failed. Greatly discouraged and with
little hope of success, Lamara decided to try one last time at a clinic in the
Ukrainian city of Donetsk. To increase the probability of success, she arranged
to try there with two surrogate mothers.

Both mothers became pregnant on the first try, and moreover, the
sonograms showed that both women were carrying twins. On Jan. 6, 2011 Ioannis
and Feokharis were born in Moscow, and two days later (Misha) and Maria
appeared.

Since their birth, the babies have been cared for by three devoted
women: Lamara, her younger sister and a nanny; Lamara’s husband divorced her
shortly before the grandchildren’s birth. But Lamara is confident that she will
be able to give the children everything they need to make them happy. She is still
a fairly young 57, and she has the means to bring them all up.

But problems remain. Although the babies are already five months old,
they still don’t have birth certificates. The local registry office refused to
issue them on the grounds that in Russia, only married couples may use the
services of surrogate mothers. However, last summer, a local court established
a precedent by ruling that a single father could register his child born of a
surrogate mother. For the first time not only in Russia, but in Europe, a
single father was issued a birth certificate for a “surrogate” child with the
line for the mother’s name crossed out. Lamara took her case to court, but this
time the judges saw differently; the court ruled against her because she does
not have a husband.

But Kelesheva has no intention of giving up. She has already filed an
appeal. “If even after this the children are not extricated from their legal
vacuum, I will go to the Supreme Court. I want to be registered as the
children’s mother.”

What are Russia’s laws on surrogacy?

Konstantin Svitnev, Director, Rosjurconsulting

Unfortunately, Russia has no special surrogacy law on the books. The existing provisions of the Russian Federation’s Family Code and the Law on Civil Status Acts establish only the procedure for registering “surrogate” children. A record of parents’ names can only be entered into the ledger of births subject to obtaining a preliminary agreement from the surrogate mother. What’s more, this situation is illustrated using an example of a married couple – the law only covers one of several potential situations. The meaning of this provision, however, is not that only married couples are allowed to use the services of a surrogate mother in Russia; rather, it’s that in order to be put on official record as parents, the new mom and dad must first secure the surrogate mother’s official consent.

The specific legal provision regulating the procedure for registering “surrogate” children is sometimes used to come to the absurd conclusion that unmarried people cannot have kids. This is not true. Eight times over the past three years, various courts in Moscow and St. Petersburg upheld the right of single, unmarried people, both men and women, to reproduction via a surrogacy program. Russian courts have sided with people who have become parents through surrogacy and with their newborn children. I am confident that Lamara Kelesheva has the right to be listed as the mother on the birth certificate.